Thursday, March 7, 2013

My Memorial Service

My Daughter, Monica, and I at the American Cemetery in Hamm, Luxembourg, in front of the grave of Gen George S. Patton

My
Memorial Service

I
want my memorial service to be a book sale. I want my wife, or heirs
who inherit the duty of executor, to put copies of my autobiography
discretely around the memorial display, preferably close to an
American flag, and my old U.S. Air Force uniform, which I want
hanging on a wooden hangar on the left side of the display. My book,
Confessions of an Old Liberal, in a tasteful white
book jacket, will have to be unsigned, unfortunately, as it hasn't
been published yet. My eulogy can be the forward to the almost factual book; short,
concise and in the current marketing scheme of selling books, inflated as possible. Maybe they can just read from the
jacket liner.

It
may be difficult to convince whichever funeral home ends up with me to fend off the clergy
who will try to claim authority over my soul. Funeral homes seem to
have a divine link with local religious powers, giving them an inside track to grieving family members who are
then led to believe without some kind of formal religious guidance,
my soul may just wander around North Port looking for a way out.

I
often wondered about the overwhelming number of Christians buried in
the oversea American War Cemeteries. I visit the American War Cemetery in Hamm,
Luxembourg, where General George S. Patton is buried, every time my
wife and I go to Germany to see family. The cemetery is located not far from the Luxembourg airport. An occasional Star of David breaks up the
symmetry of the row upon row of crosses in the somber reminder of the
incredible price America paid to free Europe. The cemetery in
Bastogne, Belgium, is the same way, and so is the memorial cemetery
just outside Liege. Where are the atheists and the agnostics? What
kind of marker did they get? Or did they just get drafted a second
time?

The
religious powers added “Under God” to the pledge of allegiance
when I was in fourth or fifth grade, and changed the law about
headstones in all the U.S. Military cemeteries about the same time.
Before the early fifties, fallen U.S. service men and women were
buried with round headstones with inscriptions. After the religious
pressure successfully lobbied Congress, the markers were changed to
Christian crosses, the Star of David, and the Crescent Star. The
Wiccan Pentacle was added only after a lawsuit by Americans United
for the Separation of Church and State in 2007. If you are a
veteran, your survivors can choose from among different symbols
offered for your old style round headstone by the Veterans
Administration, now including the option for “none.” But they
don't have a marker for me. My marker would be a question mark.

Even
though the club obviously isn't as exclusive as it used to be,
apparently there are no agnostics buried in any American military
cemeteries. So up in smoke I go.